unvarnished.. unglamorous side of being in the food network spotlight

The unvarnished and unglamorous side of being in the food network spotlight.

We are in Las Vegas for the Catersource Conference and Tradeshow. Jack Milan and Meryl Snow (widely successful award-winning Chefs, authors, and entrepreneurs..  I am looking for brownie points here..lol) texted us to meet for drinks after supper.. this is my response to Jack a week later (ah well better late than never) so I turned it into a blog post.

Ok.. so here is what we were doing when your text came in. Emily and I went to the wrong valet parking, Caesar’s Forum shops and the GPS on her phone took us there. We.. well ok, she, had to schlepp all her stuff (she did a couple of classes at the tradeshow) 5 miles past all those shops, then another 5 miles to get to her room.. whew.

Oh and did I mention the valet said they close at 11:30 pm, we paid no attention to this because we were dropping off Emily’s stuff and going to The Mirage for supper.

We are walking on stumps.. that Las Vegas tradeshow floor is a killer on our feet and backs, omg I was in pain! If someone would have passed us with a wheelbarrow I would have jumped into it, I’m not proud, uh uh. We make it to Emily’s room and are finished for the night, although we didn’t know that then. We collapsed into the comfy furniture, she has a suite.

We whine about parking, we did the wrong valet. Emily makes me some tea and she has a ginger beer. We visit and discuss everything important, like clothes, make-up, and our past lives. Emily puts out some leftovers from the demos, cheese, and nut thingys.

She is filling me in on the virtues of compression socks and I am wondering what the heck are they. I am imagining squishing your feet into these tiny socks and your legs coming out looking like sausages. She brings out a pair and puts them on,  aaaahhh .. now I know! In my time we called those old lady support hose!

She then finds another pair (I think from her hamper..lol) and makes me put them on! Oh my lovely god in heaven .. these knee-high hose make my feet and legs tingle with excitement. I manage to get the hose to fit around my toes in my flip-flop-type sandals. Ok, now we are feeling somewhat better. Still unwilling to get up and actually go get my car, we are thinking valet will bring it to us at our hotel location and we’ll go out for supper.

Emily brings out one of those heat-up dinners in a box that she bought at, are you ready for this? Big Lots! It has a big orange sale tag of 1.75 in the corner (India on a Platter) Splendid Peas Potato (Aloe Mutter). She suggests we heat it, are you kidding me? Well sometimes we just don’t have time to eat and I understand totally what she is saying.. but I AM NOT EATING THAT!!

We then talk about all our great buys at Big Lots..  I furnished my place down south in Yuma Az. from Big Lots. I had eight boxes waiting to be put together at one time. Ok, so I still have a couple that need to be constructed, my enthusiasm waned after the first few. I then rooked unsuspecting random people into putting some together, ok.. the last two will probably rot in my shed!

While we are chatting away she brings out a small slow cooker and says.. well let’s just heat it and see what it looks like. No harm in that I’m thinking, it looks disgusting, just like what you think it would look like!

She then goes on to show me another little trick to keep your toes from hurting in high heels, I know .. but I used to wear them (until l broke my foot twice in the same place). This involves clear medical tape and I am going to use her method on a deformed toe I have ( information overload, sorry).

Well, looky here, the disgusting-looking meal is heated and ready. Emily unpacks some FOH.. ‘Front of the House’ little cutlery and glasses with silver inserts.. she gets to keep some of this stuff because they are one of her sponsors. I am eyeing up the FOH nice wood vessels. Na, but they sure have some NICE stuff! So.. “let’s just try it” she says as she pours it equally into two glasses.

I have to say here that hunger is a funny thing, what something tastes like has a direct correlation to how hungry you are. Oh, and that old adage that I live by in the catering business.. “people eat with their eyes first”? While it is true (there are exceptions when you are famished) by god we ate it all and I think I enjoyed it too! All I’m going to say here is, hmmm… if you see me in Big Lots it might be in the food aisle, just sayin.

Footnote: we didn’t make it to supper, Buttercream Dream Team (famous chocolate food sculptors) showed up and Emily scraped together appetizers (leftover cheese with fancy cutter pear pieces and a broken-up chocolate bar).

I had to leave and walk 10 miles (the kilometers is fading.. I am getting Americanized) back to get my car out of Valet before 11:30 or they charge you a 20.00 overnight charge.. can you believe it?

Thank you Emily for supper and the ‘lift’.. lol

And that, Jack and Meryl is why we didn’t get to join you for drinks….

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June 8th 2015